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Believe me, we know all about manufacturers adding low end-boosting EQ to their products so they can get away with using tiny, shitty speakers. Back in the day, most decent mixing rooms had a shitty pair of Yamaha NS-10's in addition to their studio-quality monitors. We would mix in our nice monitors and then run that mix through the Yamaha's to simulate what the mix would sound like in a cheap consumer setup, and we'd try hard to make it sound as good as possible in as many environments as possible. Nowadays they only do a theater mix and then let software downmix it to stereo without any consideration for how shitty it's going to sound.

As someone who's worked in audio post, this is not the first time I've heard people in the industry give this defense and it is absolute horseshit. If your surround sound system is so cheap and poorly designed as to be borderline defective, or if you set it up retardedly, with you LCR speakers pointed away from you and the surround speakers right behind your living room couch and aimed at your head, then you may have a point. IF!

But most people watch movies on their TVs or computers, in their living rooms, with a regular stereo speaker setup that doesn't require (or even offer) any calibration that would affect the relative levels of the sources in a mix. The real problem comes from multi-channel, extreme dynamic range, movie theater mixes being the de facto standard for movie audio. When you're in a movie theater, that huge difference between the dialog and everything else helps the narrative: Vin Diesel is talking to some guy and all of a sudden SOME SUPER LOUD SHIT EXPLODES RIGHT NEXT TO THEM! The extreme loudness difference between the dialog and the explosion startles you and helps convey the shock and scariness of the terrorists trying to kill old Vin there, or whatever. But most people find that shit annoying when it happens in their living rooms at 10PM, for some reason. We just want to set the movie at a comfortable level and have it remain there without getting too loud or too soft. Most receivers, TV's and players have some kind of audio compressor feature (midnight mode, dynamic range control, D.COMP, dynamic compression, etc.) that somewhat lowers the volume for you when things start to get too loud. Unfortunately these features are usually not aggressive enough.

Lowes doesn't sell tung oil — pure or otherwise. You're probably referring to Minwax or Watco or Formby's "Tung Oil Finish," which are actually wiping varnishes (really thinned out varnish) or oil/varnish blends (usually using BLO for the oil, with not a drop of tung oil in them.) Other similarly misleading names for these types of finish are "teak oil finish," "danish oil finish" and "antique oil finish." Notice the use of the word "finish," usually in conspicuously small letters, on what most people would assume is some kind of oil...

Now, there's nothing wrong with oil/varnish blends and wiping varnishes, other than the fact that they lie about what's in the can in order to charge you a ton of money for what is essentially a bunch of mineral spirits with a bit of varnish and maybe some oil mixed in. If you actually do want the extra protection of a wiping varnish or oil/varnish finish, save yourself some money and mix your own. Equal parts mineral spirits, BLO and some varnish is a good starting point.

When the fence isn't parallel to the blade, the rear edge of the blade will contact the wood, regardless of which way the fence is off.

Not quite. If the fence slopes towards the blade, it will inevitably push the wood into the back of the blade as you cut it, which is how kickback happens. It will also cause the wood to get jammed between the fence and the splitter/riving knife, requiring more hand pressure to push through the cut, increasing the likelihood of injury in the event of kickback.

Now, if the fence slopes away from the back of the blade (we're talking a few thousandths of an inch here), then the wood can move around in the extra bit of space and perhaps touch the back of the blade, but it probably won't be pushed into it hard enough that it has no choice but to catch the blade and come flying back at you.

Also, generally glossy finishes are harder than more matte finishes, at least polyurethanes. When I was making my desk I was advised to lay down coats of high gloss finish before a final matte coat.

This is not true at all. The only difference between a glossy finish and its matte equivalent is the addition of flatteners to the matte version. Generally you lay down glossy coats under a final matte coat because otherwise having flatteners in every coat can obscure the grain and look murky. The hardness or toughness of the finish doesn't come into play at all.

To be clear, you do need a knife line (or preferably a marking gauge line) as your baseline, so you have a little break in the grain for your chisel to rest inside of when you're chopping out the waste. But for marking out the saw cuts, a pencil line shows you where you need to cut much more clearly than a knife line, particularly on the end grain, where the cut starts. I know it seems like a knife line would be more accurate, but trust me, switching to pencil sped up my dovetails considerably and made them tighter than when I used a knife for everything.

I tried pencil on one of them but I had trouble staying tight to my line.

That's just a matter of technique. Practice cutting to a pencil line staying on the waste side, but just leaving the line.

I like these Veritas marking knives; they are thin enough to fit into tight spots, they're comfortable to grip, stay sharp for a long time and are easy to sharpen. Having said that, consider using a pencil for marking dovetails (pencil lines are easier to see on end grain and give you a clearer indication of where to cut.)

A thinner plate saw won't make much difference, you just need to keep practicing. Your Veritas saw is a great saw (I own a bunch of their molded spine saws and really like them.)

Try cutting in long, uninterrupted strokes. The more you use tiny back and forth motions, or start and stop the saw, the uglier your final cut will be. It also looks like you may be chopping too much waste too soon. You really need to sneak up to your baseline. If you try to chop directly on the line with anything more than about 1/32" of waste left, you will probably move the baseline and get gaps.

Bear in mind that if you were eating less calories than you thought, but losing weight as you expected, you may have overestimated your TDEE... Be sure to monitor your weight as you adjust the amount of food you eat.

I didn't see a marking knife or marking gauge in your list. Also, the Veritas honing jig is great, but you'll need more than just two grits for sharpening... Either get more stones or go with the "scary sharp" sandpaper method, at least until you can afford to get more stones.

Finally, unless you plan on working only with softwoods (or live in Japan) ditch the pull saw and get some proper western-style saws.

So you're basically ordering parts for your project and saving yourself the headache of having to make them yourself from rough lumber. That's really cool!

I'm assuming the quality of their milling and surfacing is pretty decent? Do you still have to do any jointing or planing before you can use these boards for your projects? I basically gave up buying surfaced lumber from the lumberyards near me because the quality of their work was so poor (deep saw marks on supposedly jointed edges, edges not being parallel, etc.) Then again, I've never placed a big commercial order like this one!

Your sanding schedule is all messed up, man! You shouldn't need to go all the way down to 60-grit (you might have to now, since you've already scratched the surface up with low grits, but not usually.)

Next time just go with something like 120, 180 and 220. If you hit your pieces with a smoothing plane before assembling, you can go straight to 220, or not even sand at all.

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